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EPALE Discussion on European Day of Languages 2016

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Don’t miss your chance to share your experience in teaching languages to adults, any tips or challenges you’ve faced, learn about best practices from your peers across Europe, and discuss various topics with the EPALE community!

 

In honour of European Day of Languages, we’ll be hosting a day-long discussion which will be moderated by language teacher and polyglot Alex Rawlings and EPALE’s thematic coordinator for Quality, Andrew McCoshan. Don’t miss your chance to share your experience in teaching languages to adults, any tips or challenges you’ve faced, learn about best practices from your peers across Europe, and discuss various topics with the EPALE community! We have also gathered interesting case studies, thought-provoking blog posts and helpful resources on the topic of languages and adult education – click here to check them out.

The discussion will start on 26 September at 10:30 CET and it will be divided in two parts:

  • Morning session (10:30am– 1:00pm CET) – How do we make language learning the best it can be?

  • Afternoon session (1:00pm–4:00pm CET) – How do we best meet the needs of different groups for language learning?

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Emile ELIE
Mer, 10/05/2016 - 16:29

Hello,

Could we get the links for the video of those 2 sessions?

 

  • (10:30am– 1:00pm CET) – How do we make language learning the best it can be?

  • Afternoon session (1:00pm–4:00pm CET) – How do we best meet the needs of different groups for language learning?

 

Thank you

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Rumen HALACHEV
Community Contributor (Bronze Member).
Ven, 10/07/2016 - 10:45

In risposta a di Emile ELIE

Hi Emile,

The two sessions were not recorded as a video – they were part of a written discussion which took part in this forum. However, a legacy post will soon be published on EPALE giving you the main highlights from the discussion.

Kind regards,

Rumen

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Murphy Eily
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:21

I am a Business English teacher, teaching mostly in company in France. It was interesting to see that motivation and empowerment(learner autonomy) were highlighted in this morning's thread. I certainly find this true in my context and the CEFR is a useful tool here.

How do we motivate more language learning? : I've found that when the competences in the CEFR can be further contextualised and personalised, the goals become more tangible and motivation increases. This can include referring to local events, or setting a personal job-specific goal and ideally, assessing the learner on these tasks. There is however, increasing pressure to apply other assessment tools such as TOEIC scores. Often, a frank discussion with the learner on the value of both methods of assessment is called for.

A second and related point which I found interesting in Brian North's talk was taking into account the plurilingual aspect of communication. The vast majority of my learners use English to communicate with other L2 speakers. My adults learners are sometimes faced with an internal conflict leftover from their schooldays: they want to speak like a native speaker, and until they can do this, they are reluctant to take chances expressing themselves. Again, open discussion of ELF and NNS can help here.

As a trainer, the overlap between pure language teaching and communicative skills is not always clear. In many ways, the "market" is still stuctured to see trainers as language training providers, despite a clear need for trainers who can deal with cultural and sociolinguistic aspects of communication. The "Strategies" secion of the Eaquals/CEFR desciptors has been of great help to me in evaluating these points. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the "Mediation" descriptors as more and more of my B2+ learners need to simplify their language when working with L2 speakers who have a lower level, and this skill is not always recognised.

To summarise, learners are more motivated when the goals relate directly to them, and when they feel comfortable code-switching and using inter-language. I've found that decision-makers and those who finance training (in business English) are often more open to this interpretation than the learners themselves. Conflicting ideas at decision-maker level about task-based assessment or quantitive testing are, hopefully, stuctural rather than ideological?

Should we do more to promote health and well-being aspects of language learning? Yes :)

How and when are the best places to learn? I seem to spent more and more time on helping learners 'learn to learn'. Language is something you do, rather than knowledge you acquire, so any and all ways of intergrating language into their everyday lives outside of the classroom helps. This can range from switching language preferences on their computer/TV to sharing on online platforms between classes. My students don't live in an English-speaking country but communicate by email or phone everyday in their jobs. Rather than creating extra "work", I think it's better if they can share what they are doing in English anyway with their trainer and other learners in the group.

I don't always dare mention the number of hours of learning (time spent with trainer) which are required to move from one CEFR level to the next - terrifying and unattainable within the constraints of company training budgets. Instead focus on smaller can-dos and examples of other successful learners as role models.

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EPALE Moderator
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:18

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Thank you to everyone who has taken part in today’s discussion so far! This marks the end of the officially moderated part of our discussion, and EPALE would like to thank our moderators for today, Alex Rawlings and Andrew McCoshan. We will however be leaving comments open so please feel free to continue the discussion this evening.

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Alex Rawlings
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:15

Thanks everyone for taking part in today's discussion! It's great to hear from colleagues across the language learning world, and to have learned so much from you. All the best of luck with your work! Thank you for helping to make the world a more multilingual place.

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Andrew MCCOSHAN
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:13

Adult language learning is a wide ranging subject and it is fascinating which topics emerged as being a particular focus for our participants. Here is my own list of ‘take aways’ – what’s yours?

 

  • Motivation and empowerment – these are clearly vital foundation stones for learning and it is important that we find ways not just of motivating people at the start of their learning but also helping to support motivation and empowerment on the whole learning journey.

 

  • Digital technology – I find it interesting that, while it is not questioned that they have a key role to play, digital technologies move on so quickly that issues like how to achieve the best mix of digital and traditional resources and methods seem to remain much debated!

 

  • Informal learning has a vital role to play in adult language learning – do we need to give more consideration to the way in which it is used in conjunction with formal learning? Or is this already happening owing to the explosion in "informal" resources available on the Internet?

 

  • The workplace can provide a highly relevant context in which to learn languages, with employers being part of the package to stimulate and motivate people.

 

  • Finally, migrants have particularly pressing language learning needs. At the same time, participants emphasised the importance of seeing migrant learning in wider contexts, such as the rich possibilities that multi-national classrooms can offer for mutual learning as well as the need to acknowledge that migrants need opportunities not just to acquire the language of others, but to appropriate features of host languages into their own language repertoires.

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Matilde Grünhage-Monetti
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:07

Thank you to everybody for sharing ideas and insights. Till to ... next year!?!

Matilde Grünhage-Monetti

 

 

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Jolanta WOLAGIEWICZ
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:56

For many years I was teaching English to seniors, mostly women over 60 within The Third Age University and Academy plus 50 in Białystok, Poland.

The reasons my students attended classes were different – some wanted just to train their brains instead of solving crosswords, some to make the dream from the past come true, some – because their friends were in the group, but the most of them wanted to learn at least some of the language their grandchildren use in many countries they live.

It was very pleasant experience although not easy for me or for them.

Elder people are used to old methods they remember from their school times – reading, writing new words with translation, solving some always the same exercises, learning grammar rules, etc. It  was always very difficult to convince them, that there is no use in learning grammar rules from heart. They wanted to have them written in their notebooks. They couldn’t believe they can understand or finally speak without them.

The turning-point always appeared when we started playing children games, card games or any other activities based on a pattern to follow – my student usually forgot about rules being involved in nice activity and discovered themselves their progress in understanding and using English in simple communication.

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Hi Jolanta, 

A similar experience can be found in Mary Cunningham guest blog post on EPALE: 'You are never too old to learn a new language' 

U3A tutors make an extra effort by incorporating watching films, playing board games and learning songs in the chosen language. This element of fun breaks down barriers and encourages communication amongst members, an enjoyable experience for all.

 

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Rumen HALACHEV
Community Contributor (Bronze Member).
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:35

David Mallows wrote a piece on The social aspect in migrant language education. In it Mallows makes several very good points:

Successful learning of a new language is not just reliant on the cognitive skills of each individual adult. Instead it is closely related to 1) their purpose and motivation for learning and using the language; 2) to the context in which they are learning; and 3) to what they would consider to be successful language learning.

To meet the needs of the rising numbers of adults, who need to learn the language of their new host community, we will have to massively increase the availability of formal and non-formal language learning opportunities within classrooms. Technology certainly has a key role to play here, with communities of language learners sharing their learning and gaining support from each other through online environments. However, we also need to recognise and support informal learning opportunities and use these to enhance, and link to formal and non-formal language learning.

 

 

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Anne Brindley
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:28

GMIT Galway students' comments on learning online:

'You can access from anywhere, any time.  It's an independent, personal learning experience. We all learn differently, at a dfferent pace.  Online learning allows us to do this, especially when we are working.'

'Relevance is important. It stays with you because you want it and need it.'

If it's a taught programme, Continuous Assessment is a fairer way of assessing. We learn continuously all our lives  Why should we just be examined once a year?'

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EPALE Moderator
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:19

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Matilde Grünhage-Monetti
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:12

I was impressed by Translanguaging as a way of looking at  bi-/multilingualism, not in an additive way: L1+L2+L3. etc., but in an integrated, systemic way: as the ability to fully use one's own linguisitc repertoire, keeping in mind that Bilinguals are not two monolinguals in one person. (Grosjean 1982)

I reccommend Garcia and Wei 2014 on this issue.

They report on how to develop this ability with pupils, unfortunaltely not with adult learners.

 

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Mary-Clare O'CONNOR
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:09

Hi Colin, I think you're absolutely right - online learning has to be accessible and it also has to be relevant. The European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe have a project that aims meet both of these requirements. They have made a Moodle course that can be adapted to whatever institution you're in:

 

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Susan Kaufmann
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:05

Extreme heterogeneity is a fact in today’s German as a 2nd language courses. Learners differ in age, country of origin, education, goals, qualification and many other aspects. If we only look at the language-aspect you may have speakers of 20 different first languages in a class of 20 people. Leaners differ furthermore

  • in terms of the number of languages they have learned,
  • the way they have learned them (as a result of growing up in a multilingual environment or learning them in a formal context),
  • the writing systems they are familiar with,
  • the experience of acceptance or suppression of languages important to them (for ex. Kurdish language)

All this influences how the target language German is learned.

All these aspects need to be considered in teacher-training much more than has been the case so far.

 

For teachers very generally this means that different migrant and language backgrounds should be seen as resources to be acknowledged as such and invited into the classroom as much as possible. Students should be encouraged to draw from the full repertoire of their linguistic toolkit. That means that we encourage

  • translation as means to facilitate comprehension
  • codeswitching
  • language comparisons
  • explanations in common language to other students
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Hi Susan,

could you clarify? You're talking baout translation as a means of facilitating understanding. How can you translate with 20 different languages? In my experience, you tend not to have a common second / third language. Thanks!

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Susan Kaufmann
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 16:06

In risposta a di Regina EBNER

Hello Gina,

you are right. But there may be someone in class who can translate and clarify. That is in my experience very often the case and all I have to do is to allow other languages than the target language to be spoken in class.

There's a wonderful ressource that I recommend, the book "Using the mother tongue" by Sheelagh Deller and Mario Rinvolucri.

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Matilde Grünhage-Monetti
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:01

For adulkt migrant, and I am talking from own eperience" it is important to be able to integrate, build in the new language into the first language. To expereince recognition for and proficinecy in first language.

Prof. Ofelia Garcia warns:

"Migrants usually learn language of “the other”.  Migrant learners must gain new features to integrate into OWN language repertoire for everyday use.  Migrant adult learners have former experiences with word and world. Migrant adult learners need to appropriate features into OWN language repertoire and not just to “acquire” that of “others”." It is an issue of respect and social justice!

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Rumen HALACHEV
Community Contributor (Bronze Member).
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 15:01

EPALE Netherlands have posted a very interesting interview with volunteer language teacher Dick Noordhuizen. Noordhuizen completed the language volunteer training offered by Taal doet meer in Utrecht. It's interesting to see that despite all the training, once you start practicing teaching language to refugees, reality is quite different.

Most of these people are passing through. [...] So much for your structure. You have to take a different approach. Teach very practical things. Who are you? Where are you? Not say that something is a door, but go over to it, open it, and explain how you say it as you do it. Oh, that was a classic mistake that we inadvertently made.

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Colin Gilligan
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 14:54

Great to see the EuroCatering project profiled today. Professionals are busy people. The hospitality sector is highly mobile. Access to formal learning can be limited. Interactive on-line resources such as EuroCatering are perfectly suited to fill this gap.

On-line resources should be user friendly and simple in their application. The layout of this website mirrors the flow of work, real life situational dialogues stimulate and engage the learner.

Our students, Sinead and Tara,  are feeding back right now:  'Learning with EuroCatering is easier because of the visual and aural supports. It's relevant to what we're studying and it keeps us more focused. The colours and graphics make it more attractive. We can log on and off when we like. We can choose specific topics within the kitchen, restaurant or front office.'

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Matilde Grünhage-Monetti
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 14:49

My answer is: CERTAINLY or Who is afraid of multilingualism?

We live in a multilingual world. Bilingual or multilingual is to be able to use all the language resources you have to master your life.

Sociopolitical transformations of the 21st century like displacements & deterritorialization ( e. g. migrations & displacements, spaces interconnected,  transnational circulation (capital, commodities, labor and people) and technology are turning our interactions multilingual.

I have just received this mail: 

"Helfen Sie uns mit einer Spende, um diesen Deal zu verhindern!

Vielen Dank  für Ihre Unterstützung!

Eoin und das Team von SumOfUs"

Apart from the name, out of 22 words in German, 3 are English!

Our workplaces are de facto multilingual; multilingualism is used in the realization of work tasks, as well as in the production and marketing of products or services.

Here two examples from my work practice:

Example 1:

MM is a young German employee in an online shop for fashion jewelry supplies. With colleagues and clients she interacts in German. With suppliers from China she corresponds in English. She writes the quarterly newsletter for the company’s  clients in German, the software is in English.

 Two or more languages are co-present in everyday life of migrants.

Example 2: Mr C. is a Turkish car mechanics. He has learnt his job in Turkey and now works in Germany in a car repairing company. I met him during a piece of research on the language requirements in the apprenticeship for mechatronics. In an interview, his employer praised the way Mr C.  goes about learning new technical terms and expressions. Every time he comes across something new, he insists on being told how to pronounce and spell the new words exactly and notes them down in a little book. At home he searches in the internet and the next day he reports his boss the Turkish translation.   When the team is dealing with a difficult piece of work he searches in the internet as well and the next days he comes along with some suggestions he has found in the Turkish specialists’ platforms. This has helped the team towards some new solutions!?!

 

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Thank you for making this very valid point! Learning the "host" language should not and does not have to be at the expense of speaking home languages. It should be possible for both native languages and new languages to be equally fostered and improved over the course of someone's life.

 

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Andrew MCCOSHAN
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 14:41

Several participants have already talked about language learning for migrants. It's clearly a critical subject.

What are the best formal and informal methods for learning the language of their new countries?

And should we be supporting migrants to also develop their native language?

What 'extra' support do migrants need?

 

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Rumen HALACHEV
Community Contributor (Bronze Member).
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 14:28

On the topic of adult learning and well-being, there is a resource on EPALE called Adults’ need for foreign language competence as a factor of well-being: a comparative study of Latvia and Lithuania’s cases.

An interesting find of the study is that:

The study results demonstrate that the adults’ needs in use of foreign languages are heterogeneous, and the adults in both Latvia and Lithuania put the emphasis on use of foreign languages for their working activities and employment opportunities. Foreign language competence is important as a means for communication with external world and acknowledgement with other cultures. Foreign language competence serves as a bridge to successful adaptation in a modern society. Therefore it is defined as a factor that presupposes social, political and economic well-being.

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Susan Kaufmann
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:55

Migrants need L2 for specific contexts, like work not necessarily for family or religious interactions!

The workplace is a “natural” place for intercultural communication, where migrant and non-migrant employees (have to) communicate. For migrants it is a good place to develop the language of the country where they live and work: I don’t know if it is the best place, but it is has enormous potential.

Work is central to the life of adults and communication is central to modern work practices and language is central to communication. Language practices, oral and written, have become key in the realization of work tasks, in the production and marketing of products or services. Nowadays, emphasis is placed

on language and talk in this new economic order that Heller (2003) has coined as the new wordforce.

So why not to learn and teach the language where it is used by the learners?  Next to formal provision like tailored in-company courses for a specific group with specific needs, other activities can be put in place to foster work-related  L2 development, like mentorship, tandem, supervision.  Consult the Language for work resource centre for practical examples and links http://languageforwork.ecml.at/

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Alexander Braddell kindly submitted the following blog post 'Supporting work-related second language learning for adult migrants' which gives a good insight into Language for Work (LfW) for those wanting to gain an insight into the organisation.

His first sentence I would like to highlight: 'Economies across Europe depend heavily on migrant workers in many areas'

In supporting the employee similarly you have to support the employer and highlight the beneficial impacts of having migrants within the workforce. 

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Rumen HALACHEV
Community Contributor (Bronze Member).
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:51

There is an interesting resource published on EPALE called '50 ways to motivate language learners'. The resource is a study whose executive summary can be found here.

It's also important to keep language lessons relevant to the learners' needs, as Aaron Rajania said in a blog post:

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Virginia Stuart-Taylor
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:50

Time to study is often an issue for working adults, but one scheme that I've seen work well is when the classes can be taken during working hours, or even better in the actual workplace itself, making it easier and more appealing to attend the classes and giving a sense of connection to the professional aspect of learning that language (sector-specific vocab, colleagues to practice with, relevant work-related topics rather than pets and holidays). Some companies even provide such language courses as a perk for employees, or offer 'learning funds' to match the money contributed by employees. 

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A large number of European countries have language tests and “knowledge of society”-tests as requirements for permanent residency and citizenship. The trend to require standard testing continues in the new German vocational language programm. 

The standard assessment-tools may be helpful for a number of learners but I sincerely doubt that these assessment methods are appropriate for all learners (see the presentation - in English - by Piet van Avermaet on our website http://www.deutsch-am-arbeitsplatz.de/599.html)

Here’s a quote from a European Council publication that points out the phenomenon of “course blocking” that I find especially noteworthy:

“some language teachers reported a phenomenon which they described as «course blocking». This is where students who have little or no formal literacy in their mother tongue cannot progress beyond approximately A2 in speaking and listening or A1 in reading and writing, despite being very motivated to learn and attending classes regularly. So whilst there are of course many success stories, for many the pressure of courses and tests prior to, and after, entry is often an insurmountable barrier.” (https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016802fc1cd)

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Very interesting, Susan. It is of course always worth bearing in mind that it can take a long time to adapt to a different country's systems of assessment, which will make it harder or easier for some people to attain a good result. Many people simply don't respond well to assessment at all, which is no clear indication of their actual language skills!

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To my knowledge, the employees weren't assessed in terms of set exams, and they progressed to the next level when deemed ready by the teacher or when the coursebook/material had been completed. For adults who already work, qualifications might be of less interest than to younger students, as the language skill is the more valuable asset to have in the workplace than a qualification, especially in the case of a tailored course.

Having said that, the option to then undertake a separate test to officially determine your level on the A1-C2 scale could be a good incentive to encourage those employees that are actually motivated by assessment or looking for the concrete proof of a qualification. Generally in a work context, if a language proficiency is required, then the motivation of doing your job to the best of your ability would be more effective than a grade for the sake of a grade. Alternatively, some companies now also include 'Personal Development' as an objective for each employee, and if objectives have some financial or other reward involved, then that could also motivate them.

It comes back to motivation, and the employer needs to demonstrate why a language will either make their jobs easier, or help them progress faster up the ladder.

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I used to teach some early morning in-house language classes to a company. It was a wonderful opportunity for employees of all different ranks and seniority to come together and have fun while learning a new language. It would be great to see companies encouraging employees to take some short 15 minute breaks during their working days to do some language revision using apps, or even just following on from lessons that morning. It benefits the employees, after all, in the longer term!

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Mary-Clare O'CONNOR
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:47

If you're struggling to motivate your students, check out this video from Babbel on 7 reasons to learn a language.

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Andrew MCCOSHAN
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:37

Where we are dealing with language learning for professional and leisure purposes, there are some important topics to address...

 

How do we motivate more language learning?

Should we do more to promote the health and well-being aspects of language learning?

How, when and where are the best places to learn?

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Andrew MCCOSHAN
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:33

This afternoon, we are going to zoom in on the question of how we can best meet the needs of different groups for language learning.  We are going to cover adults who learn for professional and leisure purposes as well as migrant communities whose learning is strongly driven by neccesity, as well as the issue of how to support minority language learning.

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EPALE Moderator
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:24

Thank you everyone for participating in the morning session. Our moderator Andrew has created a mind map summing up the main points made in the morning discussion. Looking forward to hearing your views in the afternoon session.

 

 

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Kevin Kelly
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 13:01

Susan's point would also support what I have observed: building links to a migrant's community and building an understanding of the country/culture/history makes learning more stimulating and relevant which in turn results in a faster acquisition and deeper connection to the language

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Susan Kaufmann
Lun, 09/26/2016 - 12:50

In Germany because of the large number of refugees who are not yet eligible for official integration courses we see a very new development: the contact of voluntary helpers with refugee learners. These helpers are mostly not trained as language teachers but connect with the learners in an empatic way, inform them about the new society, help them to do official errands etc. I'm really happy about this development - though there are definitely problems with self-declared teachers who have no qualification teaching - because bridges are built between natives and migrants.

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